Hydrosphere chemicals from

Santiago, E.C. 2000. Monitoring of EDC in the East-Asian hydrosphere Report from The Philippines, The UNU International Symposium on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs). Environmental Governance and Analytical Techniques—EDCs in East Asian Coastal Hydrosphere. University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 17—18th April. 

The most striking feature of the earth, and one lacking from the neighboring planets, is the extensive hydrosphere. Water is the solvent and transport medium, participant, and catalyst in nearly all chemical reactions occurring in the environment. It is a necessary condition for life and represents a necessary resource for humans. It is an extraordinarily complex substance. Stmctural models of Hquid water depend on concepts of the electronic stmcture of the water molecule and the stmcture of ice. Hydrogen bonding between H2O molecules has an effect on almost every physical property of Hquid water. 

U and Th concentrations in secondary deposits precipitated from solution generally reflect relative abundances in the hydrosphere. Uranium is co-precipitated with CaCOs in subaerial environments on exsolution of CO2 (or evaporation), while the immediate daughter products are essentially absent. This represents extreme chemical fractionation of parent and daughter isotopes within the hydrosphere. 

The carbon dioxide molecules including a radiocarbon atom are chemically undistinguishable from those of ordinary carbon dioxide, with which it mixes, and eventually, carbon dioxide, including a radiocarbon atom, is homogeneously distributed throughout the earth s atmosphere and hydrosphere. Thus there is a state of constant production, distribution, and decay of radiocarbon, which results in the relative amount of radiocarbon in the atmosphere and hydrosphere remaining constant. In this homogeneously distributed condition, radiocarbon enters the carbon cycle - as the... 

These chemical substances accumulated in the hydrosphere, which thus became a dilute soup from which the first forms of life evolved spontaneously. 

Inorganic chemistry draws its strength from its great practical utility, and this book presents the subject from the standpoint of applications rather than the customary one of quantum mechanical bonding theory. Since the quintessential subject matter is the properties of the 112 known chemical elements and their compounds, we begin with a consideration of the availability of the commonest elements in the Earth s crust (Table 1.1), hydrosphere (i.e., oceans, lakes, rivers, snowfields, ice caps, and glaciers), and atmosphere, along with brief summary of the production and uses of these elements and their compounds. 

In summary, it can be stated that there is nothing markedly unusual about the Isua supracrustal facies and their organic contents. They can be compared closely with younger Precambrian, and in some cases Phanerozoic lithologies and successions. Depositional mechanisms and hydrosphere — atmosphere chemical equilibria appear to have been within the range of more recent times (Nutman et al., 1984)119). It seems from all indication that the advent of photoautrophy preceeded Isua times. It was probably the most crucial single event to make an impact on the evolution of the terrestrial atmosphere. 

The combustion of white phosphorus felt or red phosphorus butyl rubber will produce smoke. Smoke is an aerosol comprised of oxides of phosphorus (phosphorus pentoxide and phosphorus trioxide), some of their transformation products (see Section 3.2), and a small amount of unburnt phosphorus. The aerosol components in the smoke will undergo dispersion and chemical transformation in air to form acids or phosphorus, and will ultimately deposit from air to the hydrosphere and the lithosphere. The main components of the aerosol deposited over water and soil are acids of phosphorus. Under oxidizing conditions in soil and water, phosphorus acids will be transformed to phosphate or polyphosphates. Under reducing conditions, the disproportionation reaction of phosphorus acid can produce phosphine, and the gas may be released to the atmosphere. The fate of deposited unbumt phosphorus in water and soil has already been discussed in the preceding paragraph. 

The definition of environmental chemistry given above is illustrated for a typical environmental pollutant in Figure 2.3. Pollutant sulfur dioxide is generated in the anthrosphere by combustion of sulfur in coal, which has been extracted from the geosphere. The S02 is transported to the atmosphere with flue gas and oxidized by chemical and photochemical processes in the atmosphere to sulfuric acid. The sulfuric acid, in turn, falls as acidic precipitation, where it may have detrimental effects, such as toxic effects, on trees and other plants in the biosphere. Eventually the sulfuric acid is carried by stream runoff in the hydrosphere to a lake or ocean, where its ultimate fate is to be stored in solution in the water or precipitated as solid sulfates and returned to the geosphere. 

A large variety of chemical and biochemical processes occur in soil. In discussing soil chemistry, it is crucial to consider the soil solution, which is the aqueous portion of soil that contains dissolved matter from soil chemical and biochemical processes and from exchange with the hydrosphere and biosphere. This medium transports chemical species to and from soil particles and provides intimate contact between the solutes and the soil particles. In addition to providing water for plant growth, soil solution is an essential pathway for the exchange of plant nutrients between roots and solid soil. 

The nature of the rock record from the time of the first sedimentary rocks ( 3.8 billion years ago) to about 1 to 2 billion years ago suggests that the amount of oxygen in the Earth s atmosphere was significantly lower than today, and that there were continuous chemical trends in the sedimentary rocks formed and, more subtly, in hydrosphere composition. Figure 10.6 illustrates how the chemistry of rocks shifted dramatically during this transitional period. The source rocks of sediments during this time may have been more basaltic than later ones ... 

Soils are multicomponent, multiphase, open systems that sustain a myriad of interconnected chemical reactions, including those involving the soil biota. The multiphase nature of soil derives from its being a porous material whose void spaces contain air and aqueous solution. The solid matrix (which itself is multiphase), soil air, and soil solution—each is a mixture of reactive chemical compounds—hence the multicomponent nature of soil. Transformations among these compounds can be driven by flows of matter and energy to and from the vicinal atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere. These external flows, as well as the chemical composition of soil, vary in both space and time over a broad range of scales. 

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